Battlefield Garden

I think there is a bindweed mother ship and a pig weed mother ship under my place and my garden has become the battle ground as they fight for supremacy. It has been so hot, we can barely get the animal chores done and things picked before we have to seek the relief of the air conditioning. The bindweed mother ship and pig weed mother ship have taken full advantage of the fact that the heat is keeping us from spending good quantities of time ripping their evil minions out by their sorry roots. 


In the battle for the garden, the green beans, cucumbers and squash are holding their own. The tomatoes appear to be on the front lines and are doing their best, but without some help, even they would be in trouble.The bell peppers need lots of help. They just don't have what it takes to stand up to the climbing, strangling onslaught of the bind weed or the shadowing presence of the tree-like pig weed. So that is where we spend the most time weeding, doing our best to shore up the peppers' defenses against the determined and tenacious weed army.


We don't normally have this much trouble with weeds in our garden, but the combination of not getting the straw in soon enough and the heat hitting so early and staying for an extended visit, hampered the head start we usually have on them.  We usually have them under control, before they ever get a root hold in the garden.


Despite the horrible heat, the drought that has forced us to completely replace rainfall with water from the hose, and the evil invasion of bindweed and pig weed, the garden continues to produce well...much to our continued surprise. On two separate mornings we have went into the garden and walked out with thirty pounds of cucumbers. There have been several smaller pickings as well. We have picked and picked and picked green beans. The tomatoes are finally coming ready as well.

We have canned quart after quart of green beans and pickles. Tomorrow we will add canning tomatoes to to the canning of the pickles and beans.

Because we don't have a ton of space, we plant the bush variety of both green beans and cucumbers. We have had so much luck with them, year after year, that even if we ever get a place with more room we will stick with the bush varieties. I am extremely impressed with the Contender bush beans. Even in this heat, and even though they have been producing lots of beans for about a month, the plants still look great and are still putting on tons of beans. The couple of rows of Blue Lakes that we planted look good, but they have barely given a handful of beans. I'm glad most of the green beans are Contenders.



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